February 18, 2019
Today was one of the longer driving days. Our itinerary was to drive northeast to Otira via Arthur's Pass National Park (estimated 4-1/2 hours drive time).
We woke up to clear skies and were out early shortly before 7 AM. First stop was the Lake Pukaki Lookout, the same one that we went to 2 days earlier. This time we got to see Mount Cook in the early morning light with very few clouds. I drove to a second viewpoint at the Pukaki Kettle Hole Track. This was up a short and steep gravel road, the end of which I don’t think I was supposed to drive up since the road suddenly got very rough. But the car made it up and down okay. It was a gorgeous view from there, with the morning sun on the golden hills. I drove to one final lookout of Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook, and then it was time to say goodbye to that area.
Next stop was Lake Tekapo. We stopped at the town park and got some nice photos of the lake with reflections from the surrounding hills. The water was very still. We stopped at the Church of the Good Shepherd, which is a famous tourist spot. The church did not open until 9 AM, so we were too early. But I got some good pictures of the outside with the lake in the background. It was also nice seeing it with very few other people, before the tour buses arrived.
We drove onward to the town of Methven where we filled up on gas and went to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. Then we headed for Rakaia River Gorge, or at least I thought that was where we were going. It turns out that the GPS coordinates in the Roadtrippers app for the gorge were incorrect. It routed us onto some farm road in the middle of nowhere. By the time I figured out what was wrong, we had driven about 10 km out of the way. Moral of the story: double check the directions with a second source whenever possible.
We finally reached the gorge, and it was beautiful. The water was the turquoise blue color that I had expected to see at Hokitika Gorge. We took a hike up the river toward the lower gorge viewpoint. The first 10 minutes of the hike were great, with many scenic vistas of the river. Then the trail started climbing... and climbing... with no views. After 15 total minutes on the trail, we got a good view of the river and the highway bridges in the background, and we decided that was far enough to go. According to the sign at the trailhead, we still had another 15 minutes or so of hiking uphill before we would have reached the viewpoint.
Next stop was a fun one: the town of Springfield where a giant doughnut sculpture had been placed in the city park. D’oh! We ate lunch at a picnic table, and afterwards I asked Heinrich to take some pictures of me next to the doughnut. What a great place for some stupid selfie poses!
Heinrich took over driving, and we went to Castle Hill. This was an area similar to Elephant Hill with very large limestone rock formations. We walked around and found a few small arches! Of course we had to take pictures of all of them. The area was quite extensive and we only saw a small portion of it. On a cool day I could see easily spending a half day or so exploring all of the nooks and crannies. When we were there it was blazing hot and uncomfortable to be out in the sun for very long.
Next stop was Arthur’s Pass National Park. The scenery gradually changed from dry grasses to trees as we got closer to the pass. We took the hike to Devils Punchbowl Falls. There was a nice view of the waterfall at the bridge across the river, and then we hiked up many steps to reach the base of the falls. The hike was worth it! This was one of the nicest waterfalls I have seen.
Back at the car park we were entertained by a bevy of kea birds, at least 8. Two were playing with some black thing that might have been a camera case. One decided to jump onto the roof of our car, and another jumped onto the front and peered at us through the windshield. Crazy!
We continued on to reach the actual pass on the road. Just beyond the pass was the Otira Viaduct which replaced a very nasty set of switchbacks and landslides. We stopped at an overlook to the viaduct and watched more kea birds. The viaduct was steep with a 16% grade at the bottom and avalanche sheds. It was time to put the low gear of the car in action!
We arrived at the Rata Lodge Backpackers in Otira. We had reserved a small room with a private bath. Down the hall was a shared kitchen.
The host told us there was a spot very close to the rear of the property that led to a small area where glowworms could be seen at night, so after we unpacked the car we took a walk to find the start of the trail and where the glowworms should be. Then we went back and used the shared kitchen to cook our dinner: chicken with honey mustard sauce, red pepper, carrots and onion over rice.
After it got dark, we returned to the trail and spotted a few glowworms that appeared shortly after 10 PM in the area we expected to find them.